Being Brave
by Chrmdpoet
Summary: Regina receives despairing news that forces her to reflect and face her fears as well as her feelings, perhaps finally becoming brave enough to say what is in her heart. Rated T for weighted content and angst.


**A/N: This one-shot began as a drabble based on a tumblr prompt in which Regina is diagnosed with cancer. It developed into something I am quite proud of it, so I thought I'd share it here. I hope you all enjoy. Take care, XO-Chrmdpoet**

**Trigger Warning: Cancer-related themes and content.**

Being Brave

She had always imagined such a situation to be rather jarring, that the diagnosis spoken aloud and with such certainty would strike as a tidal wave—hard and fast, vicious and unrelenting, and robbing the body of beat and breath. But it wasn't like that at all.

It was shocking, yes, but those words, whispered across the doctor's lips, didn't crash angrily atop her. Instead, they crept in much the way sleep does; so unexpected, so _numbing_, that Regina blinked and found herself in the empty foyer of her home.

She couldn't even remember how she had gotten there.

Memories of the conversation that had taken place in the doctor's office were but vague flashes—words perhaps better forgotten in that moment.

Tears she had held in for what often felt like centuries burned in her chest but never rose any higher. Her throat was dry, her lips cracked, her tongue bitter. She moved numbly, stumbling a bit, into the kitchen.

The cool blast of water between her lips felt like mockery. Its rushing relief, the pleasure it gave her, died in the instant it was born like a flower planted in winter.

Pointless. Hopeless.

The shards flew angrily as the glass smashed against the wall, its contents trickling down in slow tears that were never mirrored on Regina's cheeks. She couldn't cry. She wouldn't.

What life had she to mourn? It had only truly just begun, hadn't it? The moment she finally let go of that anger, that rage that had grown in the wild, withering field of her soul for decades. She had only just begun to cut away the vines. She had only just begun to pull the weeds and dust the edges.

She had only just begun.

Were a few good years worth mourning when compared to decades of darkness?

No, she thought. No.

* * *

_Her head was a mess of pain and false imagery. Regina was beginning to believe she had been cursed, because the hallucinations were powerful and continued to haunt her day in and day out._

_She hadn't told anyone. She had always borne her burdens in silence; that, and she was embarrassed. She had trouble discerning what was real anymore, and couldn't bring herself to be vulnerable to others in divulging this information._

_But more than anything? She was afraid._

_It was classic Regina to hide her fear, to never let it show. She always thought it was a way of protecting herself. She never thought it would be her undoing._

_"Regina."_

_She turned slowly, her heart racing inside her chest. It was happening again._

_Emerald eyes beamed at her beautifully from across the room where a body lay stretched across her bed. "Come to bed."_

_"Emma," Regina whispered breathlessly, tears prickling at the corners of her eyes. "You aren't real."_

_Emma smiled and beckoned her again. "Come to bed."_

_Her body was a quivering mess, her eyes stinging with the knowledge that this was not a true reality, but Regina went nonetheless. Her fingers slipped between the blonde's as she lowered onto her bed._

_Her trembling hands cupped Emma's cheeks, tear-free and blushing beautifully. And Regina kissed her. Always, she kissed her._

_And always, she whispered, "I wish you were real."_

* * *

_It took too long to notice. Too long to see._

_Her fingers whispered across the unnaturally dimpled flesh of the underside of her left breast. When had that happened?_

_Regina pressed the area firmly, and that was when she felt the lump._

_A moment later, it was in her throat._

* * *

The memories rushed to her, the images playing behind her stinging eyes and dancing through her throbbing skull as she crumbled into an aching heap on the kitchen floor.

Sweet, chubby hands curling around her fingers. Gentle eyes, wise beyond their years.

Laughter that still echoed along the breaks in her darkened heart.

Warm embraces like sunlight igniting inside her cells and teaching her to be warm again.

Henry.

Henry had always been the key. He had been her open door, her passage, her journey, her destination. He had taught her to love again.

And he had brought love into her life.

He had brought forgiveness.

"Oh Henry," she whispered, her voice cracking around the words like glass held to flame—fissures rippling through her throat, breaking her melody.

And then the tears finally came. They crested and fell, whispering down her cheeks with full abandon, because _yes_. Yes, the good years were worth mourning. They were worth celebrating.

They were worth everything.

* * *

_"Tell me you love me."_

_Regina's breath stuttered and stopped, freezing halfway down her throat as she peered up into the emerald gems hovering over her. Her exposed flesh tingled under Emma's exploring fingertips. Her body melted gently beneath the blonde's weight._

_The words danced on the tip of her tongue, a rhythm as solid and sound as the one that moved in her heart. Those words, that rhythm…there was nothing truer._

_Still, Regina shook her head, swallowing and swallowing and swallowing._

_"No."_

_Regina's finger traced the curve of Emma's bottom lip as it stretched with a smile and golden curls cascaded over strong shoulders._

_"Tell me you love me."_

_"No," Regina whispered again. "You aren't real."_

_"Right now," those smiling lips mouthed, Emma's familiar music drifting through them, "I am. So tell me you love me, Regina. Be brave."_

_Her heart was a dying star, burning and burning and burning as she lingered in the emerald sky._

_And then it went cold._

_A frozen orb of black in a moment that had once again passed her by._

_"No."_

* * *

Every step felt heavy, as if her body weighed beyond what she could manage to carry across any distance.

It had been that way for some time now.

Her eyes stung. Her flesh ached. Her bones trembled with every movement.

Her head was an entire universe hidden away, pulsating as it fought to function, as it fought to process.

As it learned to die.

Her flesh hung on her frame loosely, as if parts of her were falling away; as if she was being scattered across the wind like an aged dandelion.

Her seeds would never root.

She would never grow again.

And these steps were as heavy as her sorrow, this walk as long as her lifespan.

She had nearly reached her destination.

* * *

_"Regina…I'm afraid—"_

_"Just spit it out."_

_Regina was no stranger to broken surprises, dark surprises, deadly surprises. She was no stranger to being invaded by the cruelties of life, how it so often took from you and offered nothing in return._

_She was no stranger to the taking. _

_Her history was an unkindness of ravens blotting out the sun._

_And still, the news burned her._

_Still, it taught her to buckle and bend, her spine cracking anew beneath the weight of wonders she had never expected nor wanted to know._

* * *

Her fist trembled as it met sharply with wood. Once. Twice. Three times.

And then she waited.

She waited for the door to open, for the universe inside her skull to flood through her lips, for everything to change.

She waited for the echoing footsteps to draw nearer.

* * *

_"You're going to need someone," the doctor told her gently. "This is not something you can do alone."_

_"You would be amazed at the things I have accomplished on my own," she whispered, "and perhaps terrified."_

_The doctor offered her a courteous chuckle but the sadness never slipped from his soft eyes. "Regina," he implored, "don't do this alone."_

_She swallowed thickly, choking and choking and choking. Her eyes stung. Her body ached._

_"Everyone dies alone," she forced out, the words chattering between her teeth. _

_He sighed, the sound an expiration date that stamped itself across Regina's flesh. His hand felt rough in her own, assaulting her palm and making her shake. _

_He patted her shoulder, his eyes pitying and painful to see. "Be brave," he told her, and it shattered Regina's quivering exterior._

_And then thoughts of Emma slithered along her exposure._

_Emma._

_And Henry._

* * *

"Regina," Emma said, surprise adorning her voice. Her emerald gaze tracked over Regina's frail frame, her sunken eyes, her chapped lips.

The door pulled closed behind the blonde's body as Emma stepped into the hall and invaded the air that now refused to filter properly through Regina's lungs. Worry laced Emma's expression as she searched for the truths that Regina had kept hidden beneath her fear.

"Hey," the blonde whispered, a hand wrapping firmly around Regina's shoulder.

Regina's eyes, bloodshot and still stinging, danced in the forest of Emma's own as she finally looked up.

"What's going on?" Emma asked. Her eyes scanned Regina's frame once more. That burning flame of worry never left her gaze, never stopped tainting the lines of her face.

Regina's fingers tangled together, pulling painfully at one another as she swayed on her feet, faint and more tired than she could ever recall being.

And then they were tracing Emma's bottom lip again.

Was this real?

It felt so real, so terribly, so wonderfully real.

"Hey," Emma whispered again. "Talk to me."

Regina swayed on her feet again, her stomach rolling and her heart clenching in her chest. She held to Emma's gaze though, determined to remain rooted in that tranquil forest. Her fingertips traced lips again, and her truths, like her tears, finally came to the surface.

"I have stage-four metastatic breast cancer that has spread to my brain," she whispered, her gentle voice cracking with the confession.

She watched as Emma's eyes widened, those tender lips parting beneath Regina's trembling touch.

Hands gripped around Regina's shoulders as Emma, too, swayed on her feet.

Tears came easily for Emma, a tropical rain in the tranquil forest, and Regina wished she could lay beneath its pulsing rhythm and melt into the earth.

She took a chance while she could. The salted drops of Emma's tears nourished her chapped lips as she pressed them to Emma's in a tender kiss. She would be brave here, now.

She would be brave.

Her voice never once wavered when she gave her heart in a confession so quiet that its echoes only sounded in the soul.

"I have loved you for years," she admitted against soaked cheeks.

Regina rested her forehead against Emma's, holding tightly to the woman as she fought through her exhaustion to remain on her feet.

"And I will love you," she vowed, "for the rest of my life."


End file.
